What Happened to Actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers? Details
Jonathan quickly became a Hollywood heartthrob due to his co-starring role in the 2002 hit film ‘Bend It Like Beckham.’
Published June 20 2025, 4:20 p.m. ET
It’s no secret that the world of Hollywood can be very fickle, and the actors and personalities that are on the A-list, attending award shows and gracing red carpets changes at rapid speed, leaving fans to wonder what happened to their faves — and actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers falls into that category.
Born in Cork, Ireland, Jonathan quickly became a Hollywood heartthrob due to his co-starring role in the 2002 hit film Bend It Like Beckham, which led to high-profile turns in films such as Match Point, Mission: Impossible III, and television turns in the miniseries Elvis and his Emmy-nominated role in The Tudors.
What happened to Jonathan Rhys Meyers?
Up until the late 2000s, Jonathan had a steady and impressive career that he had built since his acting debut in 1994. However, following the death of his mother, Mary Geraldine O’Keeffe, in November 2007, things started to take a turn for the actors, as the two were said to have been very close.
After her death, Jonathan had his first of multiple incidents involving alcohol abuse, including being arrested at the Dublin Airport the same month that his mother died for public intoxication and disturbing the peace, per the Irish Examiner.
In 2009, he was detained by French police for allegedly assaulting an airport lounge employee while intoxicated, and in 2010 while at JFK Airport, he verbally abused and used racist language against United Airline officials while drunk and was banned from the airline as a result, according to the outlet.
Per Screen Rant, in June 2011, Jonathan was transported by ambulance to the hospital after a suspected suicide attempt involving a pill overdose. Five years later, in 2016, a similar incident occurred, and he was found collapsed on the floor and unconscious by paramedics responding to an emergency call.
In 2017, following his wife’s miscarriage, Jonathan had an alcohol relapse at the Dublin Airport, per E! News. The following year, he relapsed again while on a flight with his wife, and the two had a verbal altercation at LAX Airport. In November 2020, he crashed his car in Malibu, Calif. due to driving while intoxicated and was charged with two drunk driving offenses, according to Yahoo!
What has Jonathan said about his struggle with alcoholism?
In a 2018 interview on Larry King Now, Jonathan got candid about his alcohol abuse following the incident with his wife at LAX. "My wife and I had been traveling since 3 o'clock in the morning from Peru back to Los Angeles. And they gave away our tickets — it was just a problem with the airline,” he said at the time.
"We had our baby, who was teething at the time, and it was all kind of frustrating. We eventually got on the flight, and my wife went to sleep, and I very stupidly decided to order a drink,” Jonathan continued. “When my wife found that I'd ordered a drink, she got very, very angry with me because I shouldn't drink. It doesn't suit me, and I had been sober for a long time.”
"It is a good opportunity to apologise to anybody who was offended that that incident happened, but I learned my lesson,” he added. “As soon as I got off the airplane I went and spoke to somebody and I got back on track immediately.”